Nialler9

Kate Nash on Sinead O'Connor, Irish heritage & kicking against the pricks of the music industry

Kate Nash is one of the most interesting artists working in British and Irish music right now.
 
You might know her from 'Foundations', the debut single that went to number one in the UK in 2007, or maybe winning a BRIT Award for Best Female Artist in 2008 or the excellent Netflix TV show GLOW on Netflix about female wrestlers. 
But the Kate Nash of the last few years is an advocate for artists who kicks against the pricks of the music industry and the world at large. 
In the last couple of years alone she has given testimony before a UK parliamentary select committee about the economics of touring, losing £26,000 on a European tour leg and covering those losses by selling photos of her arse on OnlyFans.
She's travelled around London on a fire engine visiting the offices of Live Nation and Spotify as part of her Butts for Tour Buses campaign. She is a patron of the Music Venue Trust speaking up for grassroots venues. She's been one of the founding members of the Featured Artists Coalition since 2009.  She played the Trans Mission show at Wembley. She's been to Leinster House. She also released trans ally anthem 'GERM'.
Nash  grew up in North Harrow going to Irish dancing at weekends, listening to Christy Moore and the Dubliners at home, spending summers in Ireland.
Last month, Nialler9 debuted her cover of Sinead O’Connor’s Famine - a song that serves as an introduction to her dual Irish English heritage.
So there is a lot to talk to Kate Nash about.
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Deb Grant on the best music of March

This month's best of the month podcast guest is Manchester-based Irish BBC 6 Music presenter Deb Grant.
Deb started out  with Jazz FM in Dublin before moving to the UK at 19 where now based in Manchester, she has been a regular BBC Radio 6 Music presenter since 2023, currently presenting the New Music Daily Fix show with Nathan Shepherd from Monday to Thursday from 7pm to 9pm.
Deb will be in Ireland over the coming months in her role as ambassador for Heineken Greenlight.
Music discussed and chosen on the episode from Angine De Poitrine, Wax Head, Avalon Emerson, Shortstraw, Baalti and Lapgan, Hannah Peel and Beibei Wang, Isa Gordon, Carol Maia and Jeremy Gustin, The Scratch and Rua Rí.
Plus Deb talks about being a judge on the Choice Music Prize, seeing Madra Salach in a tiny venue, and David Byrne's live Who Is The Sky? tour.
My Best albums of March piece.
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How Massive Attack's classic album Mezzanine nearly broke the band

The 1998 album marked a turn for the trip-hop visionary band's to the dark side.
Niall is joined by Craig Fitzpatrick discuss the record in front of a live audience at at Listen Closely, our series of monthly album listening parties in the Big Romance.
Massive Attack - Mezzanine (1998)
The third album from the British pioneers radically reshaped the band's own bright trip-hop, soul and hip-hop with darker tones of electronic, industrial, and gothic distorted guitars. 
Mezzanine eschews the band's trademark warmth for magnified atmospheres drawing on paranoia, negative space, and whispered vocals to create a mood that mirrored the anxieties of the digital age.
The album caused internal drama. The dark, guitar-heavy vibe of Mezzanine pushed the band into new territory, but it also led to major tension.
We revisit the record and talk about the band's career's highs, lows and live shows in The Big Romance with a live audience.
 
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Bloc Party's Silent Alarm: Revisiting a spiky 2005 indie classic (Live Podcast)

The debut album from Bloc Party remains a seminal record of a key time in UK guitar music.
Niall is joined by author and writer Dean Van Nguyen discuss the record in front of a live audience at Listen Closely, our series of monthly album listening parties.
Bloc Party – Silent Alarm (2005)
Bloc Party’s debut album quickly became a seminal indie record of the 2000s with big frenetic indie zeitgeist hits like ‘Helicopter’, ‘Banquet’, ‘This Modern Love’ and ‘Like Eating Glass’.
Silent Alarm presented a poppy spin on taut post-punk, edgy pop and alternative ballads, with Kele Okereke’s lyrical explorations of matters of the heart, modern anxieties, intimacy and alienation.
Silent Alarm felt like a manifesto. It bridged rock and dance culture before LCD Soundsystem and others made that fusion mainstream. We discuss its beginnings, its impact, what came after for the band and some recommended further listening.
We revisit the record in The Big Romance with a live audience.
Dean's book about Tupac is recommended.
  
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The best music of February with Mia Tobin Power

This month's best of guest is Cork pop culture writer Mia Tobin Power who joins Niall for episode #309.
In the recommendations corner this month are albums from Mitski, Cardinals, Charli XCX, Archive, Jill Scott, Vegas Water Taxi, Puma Blue, Nashpaints and David DeBarra. Plus a song from new Cork band Maicín.
Plus some chat about the phenomenal Industry Season 4 and some other films and TV we've enjoyed this past month.
I wrote about my choices here this week.
Follow Mia on Substack.
 
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Izakaya, The Hoxton and Dublin's cultural spaces with Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin

It's been a whirlwind of a week for Dublin nightlife enjoyers.
Last Friday, it was reported that newly refurbished Dublin hotel The Hoxton (formerly The Central Hotel) sought an High Court injunction over noise bleed issues against its adjoining late night restaurant and night club space Yamamori Izakaya while it plans to open its own nightclub.
Both parties are in disagreement over what has taken place in attempts at dialogue. In the meantime, a protest took place last night outside the hotel, which showed people's clear frustration with the threats put upon Dublin's cultural and arts spaces.
Dublin folk musician and People Before Profit Dublin Central candidate Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin spoke at the protest last night, and was part of a Stand Up For The Arts public meeting in The Cobblestone afterwards.
Eoghan spoke to me about the broader implications of government policies that prioritise corporate interests over cultural preservation, he emphasises the need for grassroots movements to protect and advocate for the arts.
The chat highlights the importance of community engagement, the untapped potential of publicly funded cultural venues and the recent failure of the government to save The Complex.
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The best music of January with Vanessa Roulston Mooney

The Best of the Month episode is Patreon-only. This is a  preview on the public feed.
This month's best of the month guest is music writer Vanessa Roulston Mooney.
We pick our favourite music of the first month of the year, from midwest desert post rock of Winged Wheel, new releases from Irish artists Maria Somerville, Madra Salach, Ailbhe Reddy, Ye Vagabonds and Caitlin Orla Eve, the cosmic collab between Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, the Norwegian artist Sassy 009, the "Britainicana" band Westside Cowboy and Chicago experimental trio Bitch Bajas.
We also talk recent gig experiences and the Choice Music Prize Irish album of the year.
Follow Vanessa on Substack.
The These New Puritans interview Vanessa did for us.

Denise Chaila on new routes and journeys

A catchup with the Limerick rapper, poet, thinker, writer and actor Denise Chaila.
Denise Chaila has been working on her own artist development in recent years.
The Limerick artist has spent time away from the spotlight surfacing only to offer a glimpse of what's preoccupying her eloquent mind.
A lot has happened in the five and half years (!) since Denise and I sat down with pals to have a chat for the Podcast. This time around, it's just the two of us, with Denise sharing the journey that took her from Ed Sheeran remixes and support slots to an artistic and creative re-evaluation that prompted her to put the breaks on her career as it barrelled ever higher and forward.
In this episode, Denise tells us why she shunned the limelight, and the machinations of the music industry around her, and illuminates on recent times that have taken her to visit the childhood homes of J Dilla (Detroit) and Michael Jackson (Indiana), making a film with Limerick-born LA photographer and director Brian Cross aka B+ about the Supremes performing in Limerick, meeting Erykah Badu and her recent experiences exploring traditional Irish music and sessions.
On Friday, Denise Chaila performs a rare hometown show as part of All We Have Are Days, with the show at billed as an in conversation and performance, which as Denise told me will aim to tear down the barriers of performer and audience.
 
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My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (Live Podcast)

For our latest Live Listen Closely album listening party chat podcast, we are chiming in with My Bloody Valentine fever as the band prepare to play Dublin for the first time in 33 years this week.
Their seminal and definite album Loveless is considered a classic of shoegaze, a totem of the genre. If shoegaze is about building sonic cathedrals, Loveless is the La Sagrada Família of shoegaze.
Nialler and Aoife Barry discuss the album's fraught recording process that involved 19 studios, up to 45 engineers, two and a half years and approximately £250,000 of Creation Records for 48 minutes of music.
But what music! Kevin Shields glide guitar and open tunings added an otherness to the record, as did the mono mix and the Enforced Method Acting of getting Belinda Butcher to sing after immediately waking up. 
Loveless is a nebulous thing - it's more of an ambient wall-of-sound than a guitar rock record at times, that nearly bankrupted the label and turned one label exec's hair white. We discuss it all.
This is an addendum podcast to our original 2022 episode about the album.
Our next listening party event  is Outkast's Stankonia on Wednesday November 26th.
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Lily Allen, Florence and the best albums of the month with Louise Bruton

The Best of the Month episode is normally Patreon-only. We are making this one fully public. This month's best of the month guest is Nialler9 Podcast regular Louise Bruton.
We discuss the album of the month with the most chatter around it - Lily Allen's new direct diaristic divorce album West End Girl, along with records from Irish music scene stalwart Maykay with her long awaited debut solo album, the new sixth album from Florence + The Machine, Katie & Allison Crutchfield's Snocaps record, the supernaturally-inspired Old Earth from Dublin producer Rory Sweeney and friends, the Philadelphia shoegaze band They Are Gutting A Body Of Water and the new PinkPantheress remix album.
Along with spotlights for previous guest Ailbhe Reddy and short king hater Alex Cameron.
Plus some TV, film and books we've enjoyed.
 
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